THE NEW ENERGY FUTURE – SOLUTIONS

The Green Energy Economy: What It Will Take to Get There; Everyone agrees it's time to get serious about renewable energy, but the barriers go beyond technology
Kent Garber, March 20, 2009 (U.S. News & World Report)

SUMMARY
From wind power developers in the Midwest and solar power plant planners in the Southwest to Southeastern "clean" coal pitchmen and Mid-Atlantic offshore visionaries to political leaders in the nation’s capital, there is a growing realization every individual energy source must find its place in the larger solution of a national energy strategy.

President Barack Obama has regularly repeated that he wants his first term to see a doubling of U.S. New Energy capacity. Which of the New Energies plays what role in his New Energy economy remains to be seen.

U.S. New Energy technological and capacity development has ebbed and flowed since the 1970s with fluctuations in the price of oil and the health of the U.S. economy.

There are now interested factions representing a varying set of U.S. energy strategies and emissions reductions goals and there are competing advocates for many New Energies and Energy Efficiencies.

Proposed regulatory policies and the current tempestuous economy will have a big impact on the New Energy future.

The main reason the U.S. has no national energy plan is because energy policy has only in emergencies such as World War II been considered a national matter and has at other times been left to states and regions, according to their resources and needs as played out in the marketplace.

The bad news is that the national transmission grid is a perfect example of the absence of a unified national policy. The good news is that a new national high-voltage transmission system can facilitate the development of the national energy policy out of which will come a New Energy economy.

The key to developing a national transmission system is allowing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) authority to step into regulatory disputes at the state and local levels to facilitate solutions.

Developing a national energy plan based on New Energy will require capacity growth in wind power and technology advances in transmission, the smart grid, concentrating solar and solar PV, efficiencies, geothermal drilling techniques and biofuels enzymatic refining. If coal makes sense at all, “clean” coal technology will have to be proven at commercial scale. If nuclear energy is to be part of the plan, there must be a solution for radioactive waste.

The stimulus plan provides $21.5 billion for New Energy R&D. Climate change legislation and a national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) will further drive a national energy plan and New Energy solutions.

The stimulus package was just the beginning. The money has to be spent. It will pay off for decades. (click to enlarge)

The right answer for climate change is the answer the U.S. needs for its national energy policy. It is not a single type of energy, a “silver bullet,” but a comprehensive energy plan involving options ranging from grid power to transportation fuels to energy efficiencies. The Princeton University wedge model describes the options.

The wedge concept. (click to enlarge)

The easiest and least expensive wedge to implement is increased efficiency. To this end, the stimulus package assigns $5 billion for home weatherization.

A sample distribution among the wedges. The concept was developed 5 years ago, when there was greater hope for some technologies and less reality for others. A recalculation of specifics is needed. (click to enlarge)

Most other potential energy solutions angled to get funding in the stimulus package and are already angling for more funding subsidies from the coming energy bill now being written in Congressional subcommittees.

COMMENTARY
- In selling his Pickens Plan for the U.S. energy future, energy entrepreneur T. Boone Pickens has repeatedly said there is no U.S. energy plan. Though Pickens is right that the U.S. has no single official energy plan, the fact is that there are many proposed plans ranging from Al Gore's RePower America and its call for “100% clean electricity within 10 years” to Sarah Palin's “drill, baby, drill.”
- The present transmission system is a patchwork of wires (some 50, 80 or 100 years old) and 140 regulatory “balancing areas.” Interconnections range from antiquated to absent. The result is electrons running around on the wires until they dissipate.

The way transmission could be. (click to enlarge)

- A new intergrated national transmission system with smart-grid interconnections giving priority access to emissions-free New Energy sources and ready to incorporate battery electric vehicles (BEVs) with vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology as an energy storage mode will be the basis for a national energy policy and a New Energy economy.
- Empowering FERC is thought to be the only way to speed new transmission development over objections from Not-In-My-Backyard (NIMBY) and Build-Absolutely-Nothing-Anywhere-Near-Anything (BANANA) protestors. The problem is that FERC’s power rests on the federal government’s ability to invoke the right of eminent domain. This can be easily interpreted as undue exertion of federal force.

The way transmision is. (click to enlarge)

- Climate change legislation that includes a national cap&trade system will generate federal revenues that will be applied to the development of New Energy and Energy Efficiency infrastructure and R&D.
- The Obama administration’s proposed national RES requiring U.S. utilities to obtain 10% of its power from New energy sources by 2012 and 25% by 2025 will create demand for New Energy that will drive technology breakthroughs.
- Legislation may also create a national Energy Efficiency standard requiring utilities to meet basic efficiency improvements in natural gas and electricity consumption in a similarly progressive time pattern. It will similarly drive technology breakthroughs.
- In the Princeton wedge model, developed by Professors Stephen Pacala and Robert Socolow in 2004, 15 wedges together could cut emissions to the needed level to avoid the worst impacts of global climate change.

Efficient transport can provide several wedges. (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
- Steven Chu, U.S. Secretary of Energy: "…the landscape is changing."
- General Wesley Clark, 2004 presidential candidate and cochairman, ethanol advocate Growth Energy: "It's just a few hundred dollars more per vehicle [to manufacture flex-fuel vehicles]…What would encourage an automobile manufacturer to believe he should do it would be a government policy that says we are moving in that direction."

President Obama on batteries and innovation. From AP via YouTube.

- Denise Bode, CEO, American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), on a national New Energy transmission Super Highway: "The critical thing we are talking about here is national policy and the signals it sends to people…There is tremendous demand for wind power, but there is not enough transmission."
- Secretary Chu, on exercising the right of eminent domain: "If we just take the view that we are going to cram something down someone's throat, this is not a constructive way of doing business."
- Matt Rogers, adviser to Secretary Chu and former director at McKinsey & Co.: "The market will decide what the mix will be…It will be interesting to see what the market brings forward."
- Rich Wells, vice president of energy, Dow Chemical: "Broadly, what scares me is that we want to do this in an incremental fashion. We want this to come across as painlessly as possible…We need a breakthrough mentality."
- Wells, on the Princeton wedges: "If you're only going to do one, the top one is always energy efficiency…It is for the most part the easiest, cheapest fuel out there."
- His Excellency of Energy Efficiency Amory Lovins, Co-founder/CEO/Chief Scientific Officer, Rocky Mountain Institute: ‘[Making cars as efficient as they could be is like] finding a Saudi Arabia under Detroit."